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energy policy

As Washington continues to digest the explosive revelations in the book Fire and Fury about the chaotic and dysfunctional White House and whether the President is mentally fit for office, the Trump Administration continues its full-frontal assault on the environment.

The news this week that President-elect Trump had met ex-Vice President Al Gore to discuss climate change had some of the mainstream media speculating that this might mean that the climate denying, oil-loving, conspiracy-peddling President-to-be might be changing his view on global warming.

Oil giant Shell is still struggling to clean up an estimated 90,000 gallons of oil spilt in to the Gulf of Mexico last Thursday. This latest spill has led to increased calls by local residents on President Obama not to open additional leases in the next Five Year Plan for the Gulf.

What has become clear over the last few weeks is that the UK government is determined to decimate the UK’s fledgling solar industry, no matter the cost to jobs, families and the environment. And this is from a political party, the Conservatives, which normally prides itself on being pro-business.

President Obama’s Arctic tour continues to make global news. Yesterday Obama, who has become the first President to visit the Alaskan Arctic, warned that “Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now.”

Just as the British Government slashes subsidies for solar power and gears up to open up large swathes of the countryside to fracking, a coalition of human rights lawyers and academics have announced an international tribunal to put fracking “on trial”.

As so often in the past, where America leads, the UK obligingly and belligerently follows. It has been widely known for months that Britain was going to open up vast swathes of its densely-populated land for fracking, but now we have confirmation.